David Cameron will face a Commons showdown tonight over his plans for a referendum on the UK's membership of the European Union.

Speaker John Bercow has selected for a vote a backbench Tory amendment expressing ''regret'' that there was no Government Bill in the Queen's Speech to enshrine the referendum in law.

Chris Chope, Conor Burns and Richard Drax, along with New Forest East MP Julian Lewis are among the signatories to the amendment.

Bournemouth West MP Conor Burns told the Echo today: “I signed it because it’s a commitment of the Conservative party that we want to give the British people on ‘in or out ‘in terms of our relationship with the European union.

"We are being constrained from enacting that because of our coalition with the Liberal Democrats and what too many politicians don’t understand is that the public are fed up with promises of future action rather than delivery.

“I think this is an opportunity for colleagues to show their sincerity and strength of feeling.”

South Dorset MP Richard Drax said he wanted legislation ahead of general election “to show the electorate that we can be trusted”.

He said political parties had been “tainted” by promises of referendums which never materialised.

“I think it’s time we put something on paper in the House which will reassure the voters that if we win the general election, we will do what we say,” he said.

Christchurch MP Christopher Chope said: “I do regret that there wans’t a reference to a referendum bill in the Queen’s Speech, which is what the amendment says.

"I find it extraordinary that the reason there isn’t one is that the Liberal Democrats have blocked it, when they themselves at the last election were saying they were in favour of an in-out referendum.”

The Prime Minister has insisted he was ''profoundly relaxed'' about the vote despite the possibility of scores of Tory backbenchers backing the amendment, along with a handful of Labour rebels.

Mr Cameron has published a draft Bill paving the way for the referendum before the end of 2017, but the move failed to win over the eurosceptics behind the amendment.

Labour leader Ed Miliband said the PM had ''completely lost control'' of his party on the issue.

There was deep anger among Conservative MPs on both sides last night as months of simmering tensions within the party ranks over Europe spilled out into the open.

One leading eurosceptic denounced Mr Cameron's handling of the issue as ''undignifed'' while others warned his concession of draft legislation did not go far enough.

That drew a furious response from former minister Nicholas Soames who described their actions as ''lunatic'' and warned they risked reopening bitter divisions within the party.

Labour will oppose the amendment tonight, although a small number of the party's MPs, including former ministers Kate Hoey and Frank Field, have signed up to it.

Tory backbenchers have been given a free vote on the referendum amendment - which is non-binding - although Conservative ministers have been instructed to abstain.

The amendment's author, John Baron, said that if it was passed it would give the Prime Minister the authority to defy the Lib Dems and go ahead with a full Government Bill on a referendum.

Mr Cameron, who will not be back from a visit to the United States in time for the vote, denied he had been panicked into publishing the draft Bill to try to quell the Tory unrest.

He insisted he had always accepted the need to do whatever was possible to strengthen his pledge to hold an in/out referendum before the end of 2017.

''People need to know that this is a serious pledge that they can bank,'' he said.